SPRINGFIELD, Ill.–The Blagojevich administration has stopped payment on most state-subsidized health care, asking a judge to clarify his order to shut down an illegal expansion of the FamilyCare program. Court documents indicate state reimbursement
SPRINGFIELD, Ill.–The Blagojevich administration has stopped payment on most state-subsidized health care, asking a judge to clarify his order to shut down an illegal expansion of the FamilyCare program.
Court documents indicate state reimbursement to doctors treating more than 500,000 FamilyCare patients stopped Oct. 15, the day Cook County Circuit Judge James R. Epstein ordered the administration to halt an expansion of the program to people with higher incomes.
The documents also indicate that as many as 25,000 people continued to receive taxpayer-subsidized health care after April 15, when Epstein issued a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit over the FamilyCare expansion.
A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Wednesday in Chicago.
A federal rule allowing subsidized health care for working families without insurance earning up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level—about $38,000 for a family of four—ended last fall. That meant the state could only provide health insurance to those earning up to 133 percent of the poverty level.
Although rejected repeatedly by the Legislature, Gov. Rod Blagojevich unilaterally reinstated the coverage and expanded it to 400 percent of the poverty level, or $83,000 for four. Participants are supposed to pay premiums on a sliding scale.
Two prominent businessmen and a lawyer sued, and after an appellate court upheld Epstein’s April ruling, the judge ordered the administration Oct. 15 to submit its plan for dismantling the program.
In it, the administration says Epstein’s order could be construed to cover nearly all 537,000 participants in FamilyCare, except those receiving welfare cash assistance. So it stopped submitting vouchers it receives from health care providers to the state comptroller for reimbursement.
Annie Thompson, spokeswoman for Blagojevich’s Department of Healthcare and Family Services, declined to comment Tuesday.
The Illinois Hospital Association, which represents hundreds of health-service providers, was not notified of the change, spokesman Danny Chun said. The administration shouldn’t have cut off its reimbursement, he said.
“We strongly urge the administration to continue to reimburse health care providers for the services they have given to patients in the undisputed population,” Chun said.
The administration indicated in its court filing that of 537,000 participants, 20,000 have incomes of 133 percent to 185 percent of the poverty level and 5,000 earn more than 185 percent.
The plaintiffs, businessmen Ronald Gidwitz and Gregory Baise and lawyer Richard Caro, complained in court documents that the program continued to cover those 25,000 people after Epstein’s April order stopping it. AP
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